The present invention relates to an X-Y direction input device which shifts a cursor on a screen in any direction.
There has been known a so-called "mouse" as an X-Y direction input device which shifts a cursor displayed on a screen of a display apparatus in any direction. This "mouse" includes a ball as a operating body and a casing which accommodates this ball. When an operator shifts this casing on a base, signals of an X-direction and a Y-direction are produced by a pair of rotary encoders in accordance with a rotational movement of the ball. This X-Y direction input device causes the cursor to shift on the screen in any direction based on the signals.
Recently, there is a trend toward thinner personal computer such as a lap-top type computer. In order to respond to this trend, there is a corresponding need of making an X-Y direction input device as thin as possible. However, in the above described conventional X-Y direction input devices, there was a problem such that an overall shape of the casing becomes significantly large because of rotary type electric parts such as a ball, a rotary encoder, and a rotary volume, resulting in that the conventional X-Y direction input devices do not fit the lap-top type personal computer.